There is an ongoing concern in the tobacco industry to produce cigarettes having wrappers which reduce the ignition proclivity of the smoking article, or the tendency of the smoking article to ignite surfaces which come into contact with the lit smoking article. Reports have been made of fires attributed to burning cigarettes coming into contact with combustible materials. A justifiable interest exists in the industry to reduce the tendency of cigarettes, or other smoking articles to ignite surfaces and materials used in furniture, bedding, and the like upon contact.
Thus, a desirable feature of smoking articles, particularly cigarettes, is that they tend to self-extinguish upon being dropped or left in a free burning state on combustible materials.
It has long been recognized in the tobacco industry that the cigarette wrapper can have a significant influence on the smolder characteristics of the cigarette. In this regard, various attempts have been made in the art to alter or modify the cigarette wrappers in order to achieve the desired tendency of the cigarette to self-extinguish, or in other words to reduce the ignition proclivity characteristics of cigarettes.
The prior art describes the application of film-forming solutions to cigarette paper to reduce the paper permeability and control the burn rate. It has been shown that when these materials have been applied in discrete areas along the length of the cigarette, the cigarette shows a reduced propensity to ignite a substrate, tends to self-extinguish, and has a higher puff count.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,753 to Peterson and U.S. Pat. No. 5,820,998 to Hotaling, et al. which are incorporated herein by reference, for example, describe a smoking article wrapper being treated with a film-forming aqueous solution to reduce permeability. U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,754 to Peterson which is also incorporated herein by reference describes a smoking article wrapper being treated with a non-aqueous solution of a solvent soluble polymer dissolved in a non-aqueous solution to reduce permeability.
Although many improvements have been made in the art, there is still a need for an improved method for producing a cigarette wrapper with reduced ignition proclivity properties. For example, many prior art wrappers as described above include discrete areas that provide reduced ignition propensity characteristics to a smoking article. What is needed is a wrapper that is capable of providing a smoking article with reduced ignition propensity characteristics over the entire surface of the wrapper. For instance, various benefits and advantages would be obtained if a wrapper could be constructed that inherently reduces the ignition propensity characteristics of a smoking article due to the materials that are used to construct the wrapper as opposed to having to apply further compositions to the wrapper after the wrapper is produced. Alternatively, such a wrapper may synergistically be combined with treating the wrapper with reduced ignition proclivity compositions.